My Hero Romance: Chapter Thirty-Two
{| Chapter Thirty-Three The day went by smoothly, or as smooth as it could go when you didn’t leave the hotel room for the entire morning. Katsuko did it because she didn’t want to see the ruins of everything that she and Toshinori couldn’t save. A painful reminder of course. During that time, Katsuko humored Toshinori with some TV shows and games before growing bored of locking them both up there. They decided on visiting N.H. Academy, paying respect to the Headmaster who had lost a great deal during the attack. Katsuko remembered Headmaster Sasha from when she was at the school. He was quiet when he attended as a student, shy and reserved. She briefly remembered him as a secretary, but that was so long ago. To hear he was headmaster of such a large school worried her slightly, as it meant he might not have been prepared enough. When she arrived, however, she would be well surprised by his hands on attitude towards the rebuilding of the school. While it was clear he had been overworking himself, he was stuck in the heroic mindset of others being put before him. He was sitting on a bench, stopping for a small food break that consisted of fries and a Dr Pepper. He didn’t notice them for a moment or two, but once he did, he was on his feet smiling. “Ah! Miss Sato, Mr Yagi! How very thankful I am for having your help.” His voice was thick with a Russian accent, but it was somehow easy to understand. “I offer you my sincerest and deepest condolences, Miss Sato. Your mother made school more like a family and less like a prison. It brings me terrible pain to know that I will no longer see her smile.” He zoned out for a moment, eyes glazed as he stared into the distance before snapping back into reality. “Hey, you okay Sasha?” Katsuko cursed herself for saying it like ‘Sacha’, but moved on from it. “You zoned out for a minute there.” “I’m fine.” He dismissed her worry with a wave of his hand and looked at them. “What brings you here to the ruins of a once prosperous school?” He wrung his hands nervously, a tell tale sign that he was nervous. “I just thought we should pay you a visit. Toshinori can’t speak English all that well, so I thought we could get to know each other better, catch up, you know, the usual.” She shrugged. “Oh? Well I could catch up with you, da, da.” He nodded, murmuring things underneath his breath. “But we must go somewhere else. There is too much to do here, if I stay any longer, I feel compelled to just work.” “Alright. Where do you suppose we go?” Katsuko tilted her head at him, ignoring the nagging feeling that there was something off about Sasha, like he had seen one too many things and now he had dirt on everyone. “My lab, if you do not mind.” - Sasha’s lab was unusual in the sense that there was notes lining the walls about his quirk and even the quirk of some of the students. He was an unusual fellow, yes, but his research pointed in the direction of the origin of quirks and why they came into existence with some papers scattered on his quirk. The papers on his quirk were mainly about strengthening it to achieve his ultimate goal of puppet soldiers in order to protect the school, but his motives are very questionable. Katsuko raised an eyebrow at the papers and picked on up. “Have you been doing okay, Sasha?” She clearly saw the stress in his eyes when he snapped the paper away and started taking them down off the wall, shoving them in drawers and file cabinets. “Yes, yes. I am fine. Fine is yes.” He blinked, somewhat surprised about his rather good English. “My English has gotten better, hm? It’s gotten a lot better since last time you were here!” Katsuko nodded and smiled, looking at him with a smile. “Your English is very good, Sasha.” She gestured for Toshinori to find a seat before following after him. Sasha seemed nervous almost when they had taken their seats and fidgeted nervously when he struggled to clean up around them, like he was self-conscious of everything around him. When everything was as clean as it possibly could be, he settled with sitting on his desk, writing some things down. “Sasha, earlier you spoke of my mom. What was she like when she worked here?” It was a sore subject as she had just recently passed away, but Katsuko wanted to know what he thought of her mother. “Da, Da.” He nodded, shuffling his papers as if he was stalling to avoid saying the truth. “She was a nice lady. Very much nice. She, uh, she helped me with my English. She made me feel a lot better about myself.” Katsuko watched him, looking for any sign of something more. She found one when he smiled a little at the last sentence. There was something more about this relationship, but she just didn’t know how to ask. “Who were you to her?” His English was broken, but Toshinori did a good job in asking such a simple question. Sasha seemed surprised and it made sense for him to be nervous, if he was hiding something. Again, he fidgeted. “What was your mother to me, Katsuko? A good question.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a small glass and a bottle of whiskey, pouring himself a glass. “Your mother was a unique woman. I curse the day I could not save her. Had my research only come sooner, I could’ve saved her. Do you know what it’s like to see something, to feel it so close within your grasp, but then see it slip so easily between your fingers that it’s like sand? That’s what it was like with Emilie.” “You didn’t answer the question, Sasha.” She crossed her arms, looking at him with a glare. He yelped and nodded quickly, sipping the whiskey before rummaging through some desks to hand over a file with letters within it. “I, uhm, there is what you ask for.” He pointed at the file before clearing his throat. “I think it is time for me to go. I must begin my fourth round of cleaning up the rubble. Sorry to chop this short.” “Cut. It’s ‘sorry to cut this short’, not chop.” She didn’t look at the file, only grabbing it. Her words fell on deaf ears as Sasha was already gone from the room. Katsuko took Toshinori and they went on to return to the hotel, uncovering a lot more secrets than were expected.